Re: the emphasis on high level monsters:
If it's scripted duels, I think there are enough ways to get around the problem on its own, and it gives room for the deck to grow if the board gets broken. I'd like to run 3 copies of Masked Dragon if that remains an issue, but you've already cited your dislike for running triples, so I decided against it for this iteration.
In any case, uh... What's the topic of choice for today?
I only really agree with this when you look at the Hieratics, since they summon and support themselves. The rest of the normal dragons only have these three cards to work with being summoned outside a tribute summon:
-Swing of Memories (which sends them to the grave right after)
-The Deep Grave (which takes a turn)
-Ancient Rules
Outside of those three you could summon them through a Hieratic monster's effect, but since their ATK and DEF become 0 they're only useful for materials into another monster. At that point, you don't need so many unique ones. Sure, you have more than enough set-up in the deck (a solid fourth is nothing but dumping monsters) but without more cards to back it up you run into having so many ways to get to one gamestate, but then only have 1 way to follow up from that. It'll lead to your duels feeling same-ey as you're forced to use the same cards to bring you to the point you want to be in, since you left no room for creativity.
Just because we can always decide what cards to draw, doesn't mean we should always rely on the selfsame cards to make our plays. The problem gets worse when you put in cards like Wingbeat of Giant Dragon, which actively synergizes against your deck since you're getting a dragon back into the hand that had trouble hitting the field in the first place. You're essentially softlocking yourself. You have:
-6 level 4 or lower Dragon-type monsters you can Normal Summon
-1 Level 5 or higher Dragon-type monster you can Normal Summon without tribute
-11 Level 5 or higher Dragon-type monsters you can not Special Summon inherently
-2 Level 5 or higher Dragon-type monsters you can inherently Special Summon
That's essentially
11 dead cards in your deck. Yes, you have a good variety of high-level monsters, but without being able to actually summon them, there's little to no reason for them to be there. Additionally, you shoot yourself in the foot with Masked Dragon since you only put in 5 monsters you can summon off it (which, admittedly, three are high-level dragons, but they've 0 ATK by themselves) while there's still a much larger variety of low-level dragon monsters you could've put in to support it. In general, I feel like you missed some opportunities with monsters like:
-
Assault Wyvern-
Decoy Dragon-
Golem Dragon-
Gray Wing-
Exploder Dragon-
Heliosphere Dragon-
Hardened Armed Dragonand the list goes on. Some of this helps with set-up, some of it helps with getting your monsters on the field, and some just have cool effects. By cutting down on high level dragons you don't need and can't use, but still having a sizeable enough chunk of them for it to be a focus of your deck, you can make your deck a lot more varied in what plays it can make.
Again, you don't need to do this, but I've found that making the most out of your card ratio really goes a long way towards making more interesting and varied duels. Have as many cards you can use, even if not always, and make sure one card can't be functionally exchanged for another in every possible way inside the same deck. The moment two cards can do the exact same job with not even a situational difference, you could just as well play said card twice instead of having two different cards for it. This is how I feel about Rabidragon Vs. Tri-Horned Dragon, for example.
As for a topic; I'm going to be honest, I've ran out of immediate concerns to talk about. I'm working in the background to get an OOC up and running so I can organize information more readily, as well as think of the exact nature of the start of the story.
I think the setting is concrete enough that everyone can work on characters (as I know two people have already started) so my suggestion would be that everyone shares their ideas with one-another. Since this is a gang, everyone is going to have history with each-other, so before we even write out a character sheet, we may as well get a "collective background" going.
I'll kick it off real quick with the ideas I've had floating around for my leader character. I'll need some 'founding members' for the gang (as in, people who were there from day 1) who my character was already friends with. They're all from the same district, which originally had a different gang ruling over it. The founding members were duelists already, but moreso for themselves rather than being associated with anyone, which the original gang didn't really like. They wanted everyone with a deck in their territory to join up, give up their deck, or get out of the district. The founding members were harassed by the original gang at pretty frequent intervals, so one day they decided to band together to take the fight to them, and somehow managed to crush them underfoot. Starting their own gang was moreso a spontaneous "well, what now?" since the district's leaders were now out of business. They decided on their goal then and there: Get people together and enter the Core. They settled on their name "Bulwark Breakers" (I think this one had the most support), occupied the former gang's base (The abandoned schoolhouse I mentioned way back) and, over time, the rest of the cast joined.
Everyone cool with that backstory, or y'all have a different idea for an origin story?
